The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28: The Independent Health MagazineVarious
Science
The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28: The Independent Health Magazine
Various
Health -- Periodicals; Medicine, Popular -- Periodicals; Nutrition -- Periodicals
Ranke found he required 100 grammes proteid; fat 100 grammes;
carbo-hydrate 240 grammes to keep him going. These he could have got
from 9 oz. of lean meat or 250 grammes, 18 oz. of bread or 500
grammes, 12 oz. or 55 grammes of butter and 1 oz of fat (I do not, of
course, suggest that it would have been wise for him to get them so).
Moleschott's demands are: proteid 120 grammes, fat 90 grammes,
carbo-hydrate 333 grammes. Voit demands for hard work: proteid 145
grammes, fat 100 grammes, carbo-hydrate 450 grammes. Atwater demands
for hard work the following:--proteid 177 grammes, fat 250 grammes,
carbo-hydrate 650 grammes. Horace Fletcher, we are told by Professor
Chittenden, took for a time, when everything was accurately measured
and weighed: proteid 44.9 grammes, fat 38 grammes, carbo-hydrate 253
grammes. Cornaro lived on 12 oz. of solid food and 14 oz. of red wine
a day for a period of something like 60 years, from 38 years of age to
about 97, and had vigorous health during the time except when he
transgressed his rule. Of course, he was not a hard physical
worker--_i.e._ he did not do the work of a navvy. But how, in view of
these differences, can M.D. say: "These quantities were settled by
physiologists many years ago, and no good reasons have since been
adduced for altering them"? It is amazing to me to read such a
statement. It reminds me of a statement by a distinguished physician
in London during last year to the effect that we could not give a
growing schoolboy too much food--we could not over-feed him. My
opinion, on the other hand, after a long experience, during which time
my eyes have not been shut, is that the large majority of the diseases
of humanity are due to mal-nutrition and that the form of that
mal-nutrition is over-feeding--not under-feeding. This opinion should
be taken for what it is worth. But to test it we should ask ourselves:
What is the reason for the necessity to take food into the body? Is it
to give strength and heat to the body? Or is it to restore the waste
of the body sustained by the action on it of the force of life or
zoo-dynamic which inhabits it? The demands for food will vary and vary
much according to the way in which we answer this question. As you
allowed me to discuss this question in _Healthy Life_ in July and
August of last year I must not take up your space by discussing it
again. But the answer we give determines the amounts of food that we
require to take, since, obviously, if the strength and heat of the
body depend upon the food, the more food we take the more strength and
heat shall we have; while, if the function of food in the adult or
grown body is only to restore the waste of the body, the question is
how much is the waste. There are various ways in which this question
can be answered and I cannot go into them now; but I say, in my
opinion, the waste is very much less than is commonly supposed. The
body, I take it, is made by zoo-dynamic or the life-force to be a fit
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